Would you give up on your drug addicted child?

The best thing my mom ever did was give up on me. I cleaned up on my own less than 6 months after she did that. She gave me a plane ticket to California and told me to have a nice life. Without family love or money I quickly straightened up and now have 21+ years clean and sober.

Not giving up is not the same as enabling. It is important for a parent of any age child to not be an enabler, to set appropriate boundaries, to set appropriate consequences. Indeed, giving up is a matter of letting yourself be run over by an addict child.

My ex was abusing prescription drugs. I did not give up but I took care of myself and took care of my children.

I have a few family members who are addicts of some kind and I could never give up on them because I love them and care about them. I’m afraid of what would happen if we all gave up on them as a family, and as long as I can protect myself and my property, I’m going to be there for them.

My MIL does allow one person to live in her rental house that I sometimes feel is too much and enables him to not be responsible.

I’m addicted to cigarettes but I’m working on it. The family members are alcoholics, pill heads, other.

I do not have a child, so I can’t speak to this directly.

I will point out that my own mother is seemingly at peace with two of her three children giving up on her. More for emotional abuse than anything else.

I have and would give up on a parent(s).

From my ongoing experience (not with a child of my own) giving up is not an option. At the same time, somehow feeling like a failure isn’t necessary either. Stand your ground and all that, protect yourself and the others in your family, sure. But never stop offering intelligent support. Never stop looking into new ways to be helpful.

A little distance isn’t a bad thing though. Sometimes you need a break to regroup.. just don’t give up entirely.

I wouldn’t necessarily give up on a child I would though not enable them and would allow them to hit bottom. I don’t think its giving up if you allow your child to hit bottom because unfortunately sometimes a person needs to hit bottom before they are able to get better.

When you totally give up on someone means you wouldn’t be there even if they decided on their own that they need to do better. I would always be a safe haven for my child regardless of their age but that would not include having drugs or doing drugs in my safe haven. My door would always be open but they need to respect that and they need to be working of getting better.

My step-daughter (who I raised, starting when she was 4 years old) became a meth manufacturer and addict. It was bad. At one point, she had a mobile drug lab, and was doing part of the work in my garage.
We tried everything to turn her around. It wasn’t until her Mother, my wife, told her she wasn’t welcome at home anymore that she started to turn her life around.
That, combine with the looming prison sentence if she didn’t rehab, wore on her.
It was painful stuff, but we had tried everything else. It did work. She is now many years clean.

Sometimes it is a matter of self-preservation. You have worth.

I would not fault someone who “gave up” on someone who exhibited no interest in saving themselves regardless of having received all possible help and assistance.

I had to give up on my addicted husband, once I had done everything in my power to let him know that he was valued and loved, but he was still unable to see himself as worth saving.

If our son were to follow his father’s footsteps that closely, I suppose there would be a point that I’d have to give up on him, too. However, knowing full well how strong the genes from that side of the family are (more than half of the people in my ex’s and my son’s generations are dead from overdose or suicide, and others struggle with substance abuse), I have made a conscious effort to ensure that my son has some degree of self-esteem and knows that he is loved.

I do believe that we can love someone without enabling them – along the lines of “tough love”. We have to teach responsibility and accountability to our children as they grow up. When an adult exhibits unhealthy behaviors, we have to let them take ownership of their issues. You can say, “I love you and I miss you, but I do not like the choices you’ve made and can not condone your behaviors. I am here for you to offer love and support, should you decide to face down the underlying issues that lead you away from the person I know you can and want to be.”

My older sister has been addicted to narcotics for 6 years. She’s 31 and lives at home with my parents along with her 10-year-old daughter. Over the course of her addiction, she’s lied to everyone and stolen pills from my mom (who needs them for chronic pain) and grandmother (who was battling breast cancer at the time). My mom has hidden most of this from my step-father in order to protect my sister and their marriage is on the rocks because of it. She’s had to put deadbolts on her closet door and keep all of her medication in a locked safe in order to keep my sister from taking them. She even went through the closet at my house to find drugs, found pills my mom was keeping there, and overdosed at my bachelorette party. She’s been through detox more times than I can count, most of which were done at home with my mom taking care of her. She now claims to be clean, and yet she begs my mom for pills every single day. She’s manipulative and has no problems turning on the waterworks for sympathy from anyone willing to give it.

My mom is a completely different person than the person she used to be, and I believe my sister has a lot to do with it. She’s constantly anxious, depressed, paranoid, and high-strung. Her mental health status is very poor and it’s only a matter of time before she has a nervous breakdown. She’s a very hard person to be around and her relationship with my step-father is in horrible shape because he doesn’t know half of what has happened and what kind of stress she’s been through.

The only reason she hasn’t been kicked out is because of her daughter. My parents pretty much raised her and they’re scared to death that my sister will take her and put her in a harmful environment or, if something happens to her, her daughter will be forced to live with her dead-beat dad in another state who hasn’t seen her since she was a baby. This is awful, but I told my mom that if she offered my sister a baggie of pills if she signs over her parental rights to my mom, she’d do it. She claims to love my niece, but she loves pills more.

At this point, they’ve hit a dead end. My parents won’t kick my sister out because of her daughter and she won’t get sober while she’s being enabled. Selfishly, I’m glad I don’t live there anymore because I couldn’t handle that mess.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a parent giving up on their adult child with a drug addiction, especially after doing all they could for them. Sometimes they need to hit rock bottom before they can get clean. They’re adults – you gotta cut that cord eventually.

I hate it when a child is used as a pawn in such a game @livelaughlove21. I realize it is easier said than done but is there any chance they can get legal custody of their grandchild? It would give them the option of asking your sister to leave without the fear of losing a granddaughter.

@rojo I’m not sure how they’d do that without my sister allowing it. And she won’t, because she knows her kid is the only reason she has a place to live. Unless, of course, my mom takes my advice, which would be illegal.

That’s a hell of a tale, @livelaughlove21. Maybe you need to take the lead, if you haven’t already, and talk to a professional about someone else getting legal custody of the child. You might talk to child services before you talk to a lawyer to see if there’s a snowball’s chance. Of course, there’s the danger of rocking the boat enough and the deadbeat-dad getting custody (if he even wants it).

Were it me, I think I’d try to talk to some kind of custody expert in the state they live in, but not necessarily the town. I think there might be a chance to wrest some kind of custody the next time she’s in rehab. Your parents can prove that they have raised the child because of the fact that your sister has spent so much time in rehab, and the girl’s father has not sought custody.

What a mess. Sorry. It’s good you don’t have live it anymore.

@livelaughlove21 Your mother needs some good co-dependent counseling. She is enabling your sister, which makes the addiction get worse as it continues. She is fearful of losing the granddaughter, but she is really endangering the child by having her exposed to her addicted daughter.

Your mom needs to make an effort to have the authorities intervene and give custody to your mom until your sis get clean for an extended time (like a year minimum.) If the dad is out of state, he will have a harder time getting custody even if he wants it. And they can’t make him take custody without agreeing to it.

Your mom could get custody provided the child’s mother is not allowed unsupervised access. And it might be the impetus to get your sister to get clean.

I’m not sure what you mean by “give up” @JLeslie.

I will always love my kids. I will want them to be happy and authentic and fulfilled. I will want them to have a future that they look forward to. I will pray for them. I would imagine that, at least for the first several times, I would meet them anywhere and accompany them to rehab.

I will not always financially support them. There are lines beyond which they would not be allowed in my house. I will not risk my financial, mental, emotional or spiritual health for my addicted kids. I will not risk my marriage. I will do my best to attend to and protect my other children from the addiction.

When my kids were about 10 and 12 I took them for a walk in Needle Park in Amsterdam. I did not speak favorably or kindly of the inhabitants. My boys knew I would never be a sympathetic, supportive parent if they voluntarily became substance abusers of any sort.
If they were forced or coerced into it, my mission in life would be to totally destroy the “friends” who got them started. They knew I was serious.
They are both in their 30’s now.and are productive, loving, and are as straight as they come. I done good.

I don’t think a parent can toss in the towel; if their kid is a dope addict they are partly responsible because they did not instill the right choices compelling enough when the child was younger and valued their opinion. If they were ”user-friendly” parents or if they were dopers themselves and thus gave their kids the idea that being high or drunk all of the time was the way to go, they really need to hand in there.

@Hypocrisy_Central I’ve known a lot of users who were raised by completely straight parents, I really felt sorry for the parents because some got checkbooks stolen, posessions stolen, they had no clue how bad it could get.

I do know what you mean but sometimes you try something once and get hooked and lose all control. We have a lot of methheads around here, still.

@Hypocrisy_Central That’s pretty much a misunderstanding of family dynamics and addiction. For one thing, addict parents, unless they have gotten clean themselves, are generally unable to hang in there for themselves, let alone the kids. But addicts who have gotten clean are usually much more adept at hanging in there for the kids, because they know what the kids are going through, and also know what steps can get an addict to hit bottom.

And alcoholism and addiction can easily jump generations, so the parent’s best efforts at raising good kids can be for naught.

And your stance blames the parents, and not the addict. The addict has to be put into a position to quit blaming others and they are forced to take responsibility.

@livelaughlove21 That sounds like a terrible situation to be in. I’m sure it’s also tough to share. Positive vibes and hope heading your way.

No, I would never give up on any of my children, although I came close with my eldest, who was on drugs. She says now that she decided to pull herself together when she saw what it was doing to me.

@Skaggfacemutt You’re both lucky she still had a soul that cared at all. I’ve seen people shove an elderly relative down to get out the door. It’s horrible.

Whatever I face in my life, I can assure you I would base no decision on anything said by Dr. Phil. Giving up on a kid? There are people who thrive if raised properly. There are people who are born damaged. I do my job by giving them the best skills and tools I can. When it’s time to jump, they better sread their wings, because they won’t have me to fix ‘em.

I don’t talk about this to strangers but there was addiction in my family. A very close family member who everyone told me to kick out. Overr ten years and just as many Rehabs I stood by this family member and refused to kick this person out. I never gave money or any extras but I gave this person a warm place to fall with people who loved him.

It took time but this person is now clean for almost eight years and has a career that I never thought he would have. I don’t regret anything I did but I do thank God who got me through many many difficult times. I never felt alone and my prayers were answered.

This is my daughters husbands brother in law.
Sometimes you just back away for safety sake.

After 25 years of not giving up and being lied to, manipulated and abused, I have given up.

I’m not sure if the term ‘given up’ is the correct one for me. I choose not to have contact, or limited contact. I choose not to give money, be manipulated or abused anymore. Twenty five years is a lifetime. We have tried everything from.

Tough love
Unconditional love
Helping
Ignoring
Rehabs
Tickets abroad.
Paying a monthly salary
Not paying a monthly salary

Sometimes drug use is not an isolated action it comes along with a serious personality disorder. The personality disorder and the hurt that causes can be far worse than the drug habit.

I have withdrawn due to my own health suffering.

@Cupcake By give up I did not mean stop loving. I guess to some extent it does mean emotionally distancing yourself from the person, or disconnecting to some extent. I don’t know if parents even emotionally distance themselves ever, but I think they can get to a point where they can function in an out of sight out of mind type of scenerio.

Dr. Phil gives an impression that family should continue to try to do interventions and whatever it takes to persuade the addict to get help. I think after many many years people are entitled to say their child is self destructive, not likely to change, and leave the adult child up to his or her own devices. If it happens to finally turn the child around to lose family “support” that is great. A few jellies gave an example of that. Sometimes that doesn’t happen.

@livelaughlove21 Thanks for sharing that story. It seems like your parents could petition or do something for custody. I can understand why they don’t though, it would be an incredibly difficult step to take. Emotionally it would be horribly stressful for many different reasons. If they called child services your sister would probaby have the child removed from her care, and your parents would be assigned guardianship, but that could go wrong I guess. Calling child services could get all screwed up, I would be afraid to go that route myself, but I have no experience with this sort of thing.

@JLeslie I think that places an unfair burden on the families. I’m not saying it’s wrong to always try… but I think the expectations that all families always try is wrong.

I would not stage multiple interventions. That sounds very codependent to me. The addiction is not mine. I would need to try very hard to not let it take over my life.

I suggest the book Beautiful Boy. I got it on my kindle for only a couple of bucks. I have recommended it to my mother who is a therapist and she now recommends it to families of addicts.

@Cupcake I don’t have any addiction in my family. I just was curious how people looked at it. I have been touched by addiction here and there with friends who are addicts, or addicts by marriage to my family, but I never had to directly deal with it.

Dr. Phil was just saying something I disagreed with and I think is unfair to parents. I disagree with him on more than just this topic though.

@JLeslie I agree with you.

I was an enabler for an alcoholic for a long time, years ago before I even knew what the term meant. Then I was a preacher for the same alcoholic. By the time I figured that he needed an intervention, I was geographically too far away to help. I was troubled when he seemed to be drunk every time I called him, so I stopped calling. I was distressed when I was told he was regularly carrying a flask to work (he worked in a construction trade). When he suffered an amputation due to frostbite, I blamed him for having alcohol-clouded judgement. He had another amputation, and then suffered a stroke. When I last saw him, he was bed-ridden, and was out of touch reality, due to the stroke. When he passed, I was angry and felt guilty. That was thirteen years ago. I’ve since worked through the anger and the guilt, but I don’t think I’ll ever stop missing my big brother!

As I look back on that relationship, in the context of this thread, I agree you can never “give up” on your children. If you love them, you continue loving them, even if that’s all you can do. This does not mean you have to be an enabler, or the only rescuer. If you can’t stand to see them in their addicted state, at least let them know that they are loved.

No, I would always find a way to poke around and be concerned somehow.

The question is a little tricky since giving up can be intertwined with the idea of stopping enabling behavior. I don’t think giving up is the same as not being the enabler. It’s hard to separate the two though.